Symbols ana a

CAG. 2 213 ³³ Ibid., 229

33. 
    CMA, 2:310. Thar the alchemists were conscious of fashioning an immortality contrary to the intention of "God,” is observed, for instance, in Geber, who in the litre dc la misericordc (CAM, .3:173), says, "If he [God] has put in him [man) diverging elements it is because he wanted to assure the purpose of the created being. God did not want every being to survive forever, apart from him. so he inflicted on man this disparity of the four natures, which lead to man's death, and the separation of his soul and body.” But elsewhere. (Jjvre dcs balances, CMA, 3:147 8), the same author proposes to equilibrate the natures in man. once decomposed, to give him a new existence "such that he will no longer be able to die," hecau.se "once this equilibrium is attained, beings do not change, nor become corrupt nor ever modify themselves again.”
    
34. 
    See this text in the magazine Ignis (02.3), 227, 305.
    
35. 
    Enneads, 5.0.14; cl. 5.1 1; in the Corpus Hermeticum wc sec the analogous audacity in "leaving the spheres" ill the same sense that Lucifer (Boehme, Dc signaturaremm, 16, §40) had exited from the "harmony" of the world.
    
36. 
    Dc occulta philosophia. 3:40.
    

his natural .state, that is before his fall, when instead of instilling fear, he himself succumbed to fear: "This fear, which is the mark imprinted oil man by God, makes all things submit to him and recognize him as superior” as carrier of that "quality called Pachad by the Qabalists, the left hand, the sword of the Lord."
But there is something else: the dominion of the "two natures” that contain the secret of the "Tree of Good and Evil.” The teaching is found in the Corpus Hcnnencum: "Man loses no worthiness for possessing a mortal part, but very much on the contrary, mortality augments his possibility and his power. His double functions are possible for him precisely because of his double nature: because he is so constituted that it is possible for him to embrace both the divine and the terrestrial at the same time."⁴⁸ "So let us not be afraid to tell the truth. The true man is above them [the celestial gods), or at least equal to them. For no god leaves his sphere to come to earth, whereas man ascends to heaven and measures it. Let us dare to say that a man is a mortal god and a celestial god is an immortal man, ”⁴⁹
Such is the truth of the "new race" that the Royal Art of the "Sons of Hermes” is building on earth, elevating what has fallen, calming the " thirst, ” restoring power to the enfeebled, bestowing the fixed and impassive gaze of the "eagle” to the wounded eye blinded by the "lightning flash,” conferring Olympian and royal dignity to what used to be a Titan, In a gnostic text pertaining to the same ideal world in which Greek alchemy received its first expressions it is said the "Life' Light” in the Gospel of John is "the mysterious race of perfect men, unknown to previous generations. ” Following this text is a precise reference to Hermes; the text recalls that in the temple of Samothrace there stood two statues of naked men, their arms raised to heaven, their members erect,⁵⁰ "as in the statue of Hermes on Mount Cyllene," which represented the primordial man, Adamas, and reborn man, "who is completely of the same nature as the first.” And it is said: "First is the blessed nature of Man from above; then the mortal nature here below; third the race o/ those without a king that is raised up, where Mary resides, the one whom we seek.”⁵¹ "This being, blessed and incorruptible,” explains Simon Magus, "resides in
r.’crv being. hidden; potential rather than active. It is precisely the one who keep standing- who has kept standing above and who will continue to remain standing who has continued standing here below, having been engendered by the imac [reflection] in the flood of waters; and who will again stand on high, before infinit potentiality, whereupon he will be made perfectly equal to it."⁴¹
Tills same teaching is repeated in the many texts of the hermetic tradition,⁴² an holds the key to all its meanings, as we shall attempt to illustrate in its princip! aspects in the pages that follow.
rhe same as Rhea—the shakti aspect or "power’’ aspect of the One- which, the father having been kille (the First Male of whom dTIspagnet speaks), Zeus possesses, making of his mother his wife. Also i; the Qahalah the "Matrona" is mentioned in whom all the powers of the king have been entrusted, (tha is to say, Jehovah), who is the wile (shakti) also of the king and who was "espoused" by Moses as we (.Zohar, 2.l44h, 14.5a; 3,51a).

41.